First roll complete...

Portra 400 is an amazing film with amazing exposure latitude. You can shoot it at some pretty absurd ISOs and it will still hold together OK. I've heard of people shooting it at 3200 without special processing.

In general with Portra 400, if you are in tricky lighting you are probably better off shooting at the shutter speed and aperture that suits you compositionally (motion blur and depth of field) and letting the film provide "auto ISO" to control the exposure. It's kind of like the Diafine of color film.

Portra 400 is an amazing film with amazing exposure latitude. You can shoot it at some pretty absurd ISOs and it will still hold together OK. I've heard of people shooting it at 3200 without special processing.

In general with Portra 400, if you are in tricky lighting you are probably better off shooting at the shutter speed and aperture that suits you compositionally (motion blur and depth of field) and letting the film provide "auto ISO" to control the exposure. It's kind of like the Diafine of color film.

Could you clarify with exposing this film at 'crazy ISO' - when I set portra 400 at lets say 1600 - shall I have it developed somehow different than when it was exposed at nominal 400 ? I often see people call it push or pull - bot not sure exactly how that looks like in practice.

Could you clarify with exposing this film at 'crazy ISO' - when I set portra 400 at lets say 1600 - shall I have it developed somehow different than when it was exposed at nominal 400 ? I often see people call it push or pull - bot not sure exactly how that looks like in practice.

Thx

Actually I should have been a little bit more precise. The ISO of the film is an inherent quality - Portra 400 is an ISO 400 film always. However, you can expose it at a different practical ISO - this is called Exposure Index, or EI (i.e. EI400 is normal speed). Pushing or pulling technically refers to the development process. If you under-develop, that is "pulling" a stop. If you over-develop, that's pushing. Thus it's possible to shoot at a higher EI and not push or pull - with most films this results in a loss of negative density (a thin neg). In practice, it's difficult to push too far, as this results in an increase in contrast.

Pushing or pulling C-41 is very uncommon, and you will pay an extremely high price for this one-off processing if you don't do it yourself. Color films are more difficult to expose out of their normal range, because color processes are such a balancing act. There are usually multiple layers of photosensitive material, each with its own response curve. Think of it as three separate layers of film, which look "normal" if you expose them at the proper ISO. If they have drastically more or less light, there is a tendency to develop color casts. Low-light situations that cause reciprocity failure is an example of this. Another is Ektar 100, which tends to gain an earthy cast and exaggerated neon colors if overexposed.

Portra 400, on the other hand, is using technology Kodak pioneered in their Vison3 series of CN-process movie film, particularly 500T which seems to be extremely similar. It can be exposed in a wide range of conditions and seems to hold its balance and shadow detail very well. I'm stealing these from TwinLensLife:

This is with normal developing, the conclusion is that Portra 400 does well up to 3 stops overexposed or up to 2 stops underexposed, possibly more depending on the contrast.

Actually I should have been a little bit more precise. The ISO of the film is an inherent quality - Portra 400 is an ISO 400 film always. However, you can expose it at a different practical ISO - this is called Exposure Index, or EI (i.e. EI400 is normal speed). Pushing or pulling technically refers to the development process. If you under-develop, that is "pulling" a stop. If you over-develop, that's pushing. Thus it's possible to shoot at a higher EI and not push or pull - with most films this results in a loss of negative density (a thin neg). In practice, it's difficult to push too far, as this results in an increase in contrast.

Pushing or pulling C-41 is very uncommon, and you will pay an extremely high price for this one-off processing if you don't do it yourself. Color films are more difficult to expose out of their normal range, because color processes are such a balancing act. There are usually multiple layers of photosensitive material, each with its own response curve. Think of it as three separate layers of film, which look "normal" if you expose them at the proper ISO. If they have drastically more or less light, there is a tendency to develop color casts. Low-light situations that cause reciprocity failure is an example of this. Another is Ektar 100, which tends to gain an earthy cast and exaggerated neon colors if overexposed.

Portra 400, on the other hand, is using technology Kodak pioneered in their Vison3 series of CN-process movie film, particularly 500T which seems to be extremely similar. It can be exposed in a wide range of conditions and seems to hold its balance and shadow detail very well. I'm stealing these from TwinLensLife:

This is with normal developing, the conclusion is that Portra 400 does well up to 3 stops overexposed or up to 2 stops underexposed, possibly more depending on the contrast.

I will have to disagree with your conclusion. To me underexposing portra, especially in 35mm looks really bad. Even -1, the grain becomes really bad in shadows. Yes, you will get image, but it just doesn't look that good. Where as overexposing it +6 the film looks great to me. That's with incident meter and not TTL stuff. But I guess each to their own. I don't like dark photos with blocked up shadows with lots of grain in them.

This is with normal developing, the conclusion is that Portra 400 does well up to 3 stops overexposed or up to 2 stops underexposed, possibly more depending on the contrast.

In the photo you have showed, even if they are tiny, the palm in front of the white building in -2 is pretty much all black and very little detail. Even in the 0EV shot it looks under exposed. In my opinion the TTL meter got fooled by the white building and it is -2 shot.

As a matter of personal policy from experience, I do not generally judge exposures based on reproductions appearing on the web. Permit me though to make the observation that a lot of hue and cry is being made of Portra 400 and what constitutes correct exposure. This is a C41 film with a wide known latitude. For the purposes of testing the metering accuracy of your 67II, load up a roll of E6 and expose critically. Any large deviation will be immediately obvious and could well point to a fault with the meter, additional to any fault in processing. The 6x7, 67 and 67II meters are all easily misled by extremes of contrast, thus reinforcing the fact that your tests should be made under stricter processes than the generous allowance of print film.

Not so much "user error" as the limitations of what essentially is a rudimentary meter, particularly so on the 6x7 and 67, meters which do degrade over time, to a lesser extent, true also of the 67II. The majority of exposure problems I see are from stray light entering the eyepiece when the camera is used away from the eye — that photographers should then blame the camera for this is quite comical. It's a quite sensitive meter. The provision of an eyecup works wonders for the old 6x7 and 67 bodies, which will take Nikon F100 eyepiece correction lenses and eyecups, additional to those available on the aftermarket.

I scanned my first roll of 120 film, using Epson v500.
Having trouble with those photos that are taken when subject facing bright sun light (scanned images have heavy tint of yellow/green) that is very different than the prints. Only pics that are against the sun light turn out having colors close to the prints. Will have to look into that...
But here is a pic from my first roll of 120 prints that I shared in the first post...

I also took some pics from that same session using K5IIs+77mm ltd, I thought might be good to compare them together:

Comments welcome! I will have to look more into scanning and will post the remaining pics!

I scanned my first roll of 120 film, using Epson v500.
Having trouble with those photos that are taken when subject facing bright sun light (scanned images have heavy tint of yellow/green) that is very different than the prints. Only pics that are against the sun light turn out having colors close to the prints. Will have to look into that...
But here is a pic from my first roll of 120 prints that I shared in the first post...

I also took some pics from that same session using K5IIs+77mm ltd, I thought might be good to compare them together:

Comments welcome! I will have to look more into scanning and will post the remaining pics!

An incident hand held light meter works best in this lighting condition.

However the 67ii AE meter does not have one, so your best bet would be to use the spotmeter mode. (The models face would be in the microprisms center)

The other option is to meter up close to the models face, using the center weighted option.

On the scans, EI200 was clearly the finest grain and EI1600 was pretty grainy but cleaned up. The shot doesn't have much in the way of shadows but it certainly looks like you'd start losing it at EI800 and on based on this test.

On the scans, EI200 was clearly the finest grain and EI1600 was pretty grainy but cleaned up. The shot doesn't have much in the way of shadows but it certainly looks like you'd start losing it at EI800 and on based on this test.

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When you say "EI200", is this means that you set the ISO on the camera at ISO200, while using the Portra 400 film?
(essentially 'overexpose' 1 stop?)

When you say "EI200", is this means that you set the ISO on the camera at ISO200, while using the Portra 400 film?
(essentially 'overexpose' 1 stop?)

Thanks,
Lee

Yes and develop it normally in this case. That is, no pushing or pulling the standard development time.

I'd note, however, that per Kodak's daylight exposure table in their Portra 400 Data Sheet, EI200 is what they are telling you to use based on the the Sunny 16 rule. And if you look at some of their other film's data sheets, that daylight exposure table usually follows the Sunny 16 rule for box speed.

Edit: BTW, I use a one-degee spot meter with all my medium format film cameras even for the one that does have a built in meter. I metered off that gray card you see in the negatives.

Yes and develop it normally in this case. That is, no pushing or pulling the standard development time.

I'd note, however, that per Kodak's daylight exposure table in their Portra 400 Data Sheet, EI200 is what they are telling you to use based on the the Sunny 16 rule. And if you look at some of their other film's data sheets, that daylight exposure table usually follows the Sunny 16 rule for box speed.

Edit: BTW, I use a one-degee spot meter with all my medium format film cameras even for the one that does have a built in meter. I metered off that gray card you see in the negatives.

If it has a flash meter built in I suppose. I really can't say. We all have different shooting styles. Otherwise, the meter in your P67II is pretty good and should do just fine with negative film since there is so much latitude in it. But on the other hand, it appears you like taking pictures looking into the Sun. With a one-degree, you can meter from a distance, know how many stops of light are in a scene and where your highlights and shadows will be placed relative to your selected middle gray exposure.